Factionalism Pt 1

It has been a while since my last post, in that time I have given thought to my ideas here and there as time allowed and I now have a basic theory on how things would work.

I would best describe Factionalism as a form that governments can take, with a good dose of free-market capitalism injected into them - they must compete on the free market for members to join them. And they may not force anyone to remain apart of them if they choose to leave, therefore not subject to that faction any longer.

Now before you think: 'Hey wait I thought Anarchy was without any governments', allow me to explain that I never was against some structure in society only that I oppose the use of force against the general public in order to maintain it. In this regard the concept 'government' takes on a whole new meaning and to avoid it's use of the word from now on, instead I will call it a Faction.

Factionalism can only truly exist within Anarchy, the two are intertwined. Governments have a tendency of arbitrarily drawing lines on a map and saying everything on their side is under their jurisdiction. This cannot be. Governments also don't allow voluntary membership, they say your free to leave the country but this is false since you can't bring your home with you. Plus you'll just end up inside someone else's jurisdiction instead. This is not characteristic to a society which respects private property. It is in essence a monopoly of power in a given area, this is also not a characteristic of a free market. In order for Factions to compete on a free market, the monopolies have to be shut down and that's where Anarchy comes in.

Factionalism's basic theory is that groups of like-minded people will form in order to improve each other's lives in the absence of one of a few established monopolies on power. Anarchy provides the ability for these groups to start with a fresh slate. It's important to note that only if the Anarchy is touched off for the right reasons and a sizable group of people must adhere to it's doctrines or will it just not result in the desired effect. Just like in Russia's communist revolution, it was started by Anarchists but they were later stabbed in the back by the communists who wanted to set up the direct OPPOSITE of Anarchy, a totalitarian state.

Factionalism maintains that given people will naturally form groups to improve each other's lives is already a proven theory, it is under this guise that the first governments were formed. But the key here is that it is voluntary, and remains so. That anyone may form a new Faction without having to resort to a revolution in order to do so! So if there was to be one principle or one law all Factions must obey it is that they may not force people to remain members or subject to their rules.

Now this has further implications which gets into abolishing 'national borders'. You see if I own a house in Faction A and I want to move to Faction B, and it requires me to leave Faction A's borders then I can't very well take the house with me. Thus this is a form of coersion and violates the basic principles of Factionalism. The only way Factions might have any sort of border is if the Faction itself owned all the private property as a collective and so by leaving the collective group you forfit your claim on the property. This would be a communist faction, and in an environment where people are free to leave I just don't see it as being popular and certainly not being able to maintain such large jurisdictional areas that current nation-states enjoy, maybe a few hundred acres at best.

Factions then, for the most part would entangle themselves and overlap and be defined more by zones of influence rather than set borders as people move and settle down near to where their faction started. If one joined a faction you'd be agreeing to follow their rules or be cast out or pay whatever penalty is prescribed. Again, if one didn't like the rules presented, you could leave at any time, but if you did break the rules before renouncing your faction then you still might be subject to it's penalties. Otherwise one could go and steal a bunch of stuff, renounce his affiliation to the faction then not be subject to the penalty of theft.


What would be the rules and penalties under Factionalism? Well I do not know specifically what they would be but they would be up to the leadership of each faction. But here is something to consider: Current nation-states often will take the ills of society and place the burdens of it back on it's people mostly in the form of taxes. Under Factionalism, people may come and go at will, meaning Factions must compete on a free market model for members. Just like in a free market, you do not attract customers by imposing all sorts of restrictions on them, or by setting your prices too high. In contrast, a Faction will not attract people if it tries to tax them too much or impose too many unreasonable rules on them.

So it would follow that things like jails would not be built or used, since they cost too much to operate, a Faction could not afford to operate these jails and then also provide sufficiant services to attract members. Also jails constitute somewhat of a violation of Factionalism's basic tenant of voluntary membership. A person in jail can't decide what faction he belongs to, it would be far too easy for one Faction to lure people in with goodies only to lock them in jail for life for the most minor offense and then use their free labor to provide those services to attract new members! Almost like what we have now, do not convicts clean up our roads and make license plates, etc?

I think that the methods of choice will be exile or death for punishments. If a Faction kills people for just ordinary things, or has a justice system that seems morally defunct or does not accurately convict people of moral crimes then they will be scared off and not join the Faction. This is why the use of exile, or banishment from the Faction works best. From a moral standpoint it comes out perfect. In a world of voluntary societies, it also means the organizations themselves get to decide who joins and who doesn't. Just as the people decide which Faction to join freely come and go. If a Faction bans someone innocent of an infraction it's no big deal since he can just join another or if he chooses, hack it on his own or start his own darn faction. Banning him alone doesn't cause him to loose his property or have to move or anything else. (unless he was in a collectivist Faction)

But wouldn't we just have a bunch of evil people running around freely then? Maybe, but that's hardly different from now. Besides they wouldn't last long if they kept screwing around with other factions and did not have one of their own to provide protection, they would be responsible for their actions alone.

But now we're getting into how justice works itself out, to be continued in Factionalism Pt 2.